Cigarette butts: Ban plastic filters in California

By Mark Stone

Special to the Mercury News

Posted:
02/06/2014 10:00:00 AM PST

Updated:
02/06/2014 02:30:02 PM PST

Last month I proposed a law to ban cigarette butts in California -- or, specifically, to prohibit plastic filters found in nearly all cigarettes since the 1950s. Illegally tossed cigarette butts and the filters inside them create a staggering amount of harmful, toxic waste, and they result in a proportionally sized public expense for cleaning them up.

When a cigarette butt is thrown away, the paper, glue and remaining tobacco eventually dissolve, but the plastic filter stays in the environment. Nearly all filters are made of spongy plastic called cellulose acetate, with tightly packed plastic fibers that do not biodegrade.

Tobacco companies like filters because they change the taste of low-quality tobacco and allow for less tobacco to be used in cigarettes, making their product cheaper to produce.

Filters make it possible to charge higher prices for a lower quality product.

Many incorrectly believe that filters provide health benefits by keeping toxins from entering smokers' lungs, even though the Surgeon General has repeatedly said filters are ineffective in protecting smokers' health. In fact, tobacco companies are expressly prohibited from making any health claims about filtered cigarettes.

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So if they don't protect smokers, what do cigarette filters do? After being discarded, they pollute our rivers and oceans by leaching toxic chemicals that are harmful to marine life. Filters also hurt birds, fish and other wildlife when eaten because the plastic fills animals' stomachs and can cause starvation.

They can even hurt kids: From 2006 to 2008, the American Association of Poison Control Centers reported more than 12,000 cases of young children ingesting cigarettes or cigarette butts.

Beyond the negative health and environmental effects, illegally discarded cigarette butts cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars per year. They clog storm drains and sewer systems, and they contribute to visual blight of city blocks.

Along roadways, Caltrans estimates the cost to clean up litter to be more than $52 million annually, with cigarette butts consistently ranking as the most collected item among all litter. San Francisco estimates that discarded cigarette butts cost the city $6 million annually. The problem is so pervasive that the government has resorted to tacking a fee onto cigarette sales to pay for clean up.

The scope of the problem is enormous. Worldwide, 845,000 tons of cigarette butts are estimated to be discarded per year.

Over the past 25 years, volunteers have picked up 52.9 million cigarette filters during the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup annual event. Along the Central Coast, the conservation group Save Our Shores estimates that its volunteers have collected 466,000 cigarette butts around the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary since 2007.

It seems as if California should have a better handle on cigarette butt litter. After all, the state has the second-lowest rate of smoking in the U.S., and it has strong litter laws.

A conviction for littering from a vehicle can result in a fine of $1,000 and an order to clean up litter. Further, citation issuance rates for cigarette litter from vehicles are about five times higher than for other types of litter. Current requirements haven't deterred people from illegally discarding cigarette waste.

My proposed law would tackle the problem at its source by taking filters completely out of the equation.

Banning plastic parts from inside cigarettes won't affect smokers' ability to access tobacco products, and it won't affect smokers' health. But it will reduce costs to taxpayers, reduce the amount of toxic chemicals entering the environment and reduce dangers to wildlife and people.

Assemblymember Mark Stone (D-Monterey Bay) is chair of the Select Committee on Coastal Protection. He represents portions of Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Monterey Counties. He wrote this for this newspaper.